Meet Tengai, the job interview robot who won't judge you
Meet Tengai, the job interview robot who won't judge you
By Maddy Savage 12 March 2019
Would you be happy being
interviewed by a robot?
The world's first robot designed to carry out unbiased
job interviews is being tested by Swedish recruiters. But can it really do a
better job than humans?
Her name is Tengai. Measuring 41cm (16in) tall and
weighing 3.5kg (7.7lbs) she's at eye level as she sits on top of a table
directly across from the candidate she's about to interview.
Her glowing yellow face tilts slightly to the side. Then
she blinks and smiles lightly as she poses her first question: "Have you
ever been interviewed by a robot before?"
Tengai is the brainchild of Furhat Robotics, an
artificial intelligence (AI) and social robotics company born out of a research
project at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
The firm has spent the past four years building a
human-like computer interface that mimics the way we speak, as well as our
subtle facial expressions. The idea, according to chief scientist Gabriel
Skantze, is that "it feels much less scary or strange compared to a more
traditional robot".
Since October 2018, the start-up's been collaborating
with one of Sweden's largest recruitment firms, TNG. The goal is to offer
candidates job interviews that are free from any of the unconscious biases that
managers and recruiters can often bring to the hiring process, while still making
the experience "seem human".
"It typically takes about seven seconds for someone
to make a first impression and about five to 15 minutes for a recruiter to make
a decision. We want to challenge that," explains Elin Öberg Mårtenzon,
chief innovation officer at TNG's office in central Stockholm.
Unconscious biases include making assumptions about
someone's competence based on gender, ethnicity, voice, education, appearance,
or as a result of informal conversations before or after an interview.
"For example, if I ask you a question at the
beginning of the process like: 'Do you play golf?' and you say: 'Yes I do, I
love playing golf', and I do too, then in some way I will put that in a
positive box," says Ms Mårtenzon.
Tengai, by contrast, doesn't engage in pre-interview
chit-chat and poses all questions in an identical way, in the same tone, and
typically, in the same order. This is thought to create a fairer and more
objective interview.
Recruiters or managers are then given text transcripts of
each interview to help them decide which candidates should move to the next
stage of the process, based on the answers alone.
"I think it is a really good help while screening -
if you have a big recruitment process with a lot of candidates - having
someone, a robot, with no emotions, no feelings," says Petra Elisson, a
50-year-old who works in healthcare recruitment.
She has been taking part in the trials, both as a
recruiter analysing candidates transcripts and as an interviewee.
"I was quite sceptical at first before meeting
Tengai, but after the meeting I was absolutely struck," she reflects.
"At first I really, really felt it was a robot, but
when going more deeply into the interview I totally forgot that she's not
human."
But robots are programmed by humans, analyse datasets
compiled by humans, and learn from human behaviour, so couldn't they inherit
some of our biases?
Furhat Robotics says it has sought to stop this by
carrying out multiple test interviews using a diverse pool of volunteers.
"It's learning from several different recruiters so
it doesn't pick up the specific behaviour of one recruiter," explains the
start-up's chief scientist, Gabriel Skantze.
Following several months of trials, Tengai will start
interviewing candidates for real later in May. Recruiters and developers are
also working on an English-language version of the robot which is expected to
be rolled out by early 2020.
The goal is that she will eventually be sophisticated
enough to decide for herself whether a candidate can move forward to the next
stage of recruitment, avoiding the need for a human to review interview
transcripts.
"Before we completely rely on that, we have to make
sure that there is no bias in our data," explains Mr Skantze.
Sweden does offer an especially interesting test bed for
AI recruitment.
As well as being a small country with a reputation for
early adoption when it comes to new technologies, ethnic diversity in the
labour market is a particularly hot topic following record immigration in
recent years.
Unemployment among native Swedes is around 4%, but for
citizens born abroad the figure is more than 15%. Compare that to the UK, where
5% of foreign-born citizens are without a job.
A recent survey for TNG suggested that 73% of job seekers
in Sweden believe they have been discriminated against while applying for a job
on the basis of their ethnicity, age, gender, sexual preferences, appearance,
weight, health or disability.
"Swedish culture is very risk-averse, so normally
they like the safe card... the Swedish person," says one Bulgarian job
seeker who wants to be known only by her first name, Ekaterina, waiting outside
a city centre employment agency.
Ekaterina believes robots such as Tengai could be
"great as a first step" in the recruitment process, because they
"don't have any stereotypes about your dialect or accent or where you come
from".
The technology has also been championed by Diversity
Foundation, a non-political, non-profit organisation that campaigns for more
inclusion in the Swedish labour market.
"Any method that emphasises competency and skills
over things like ethnicity is a welcome development and truly part of the
Swedish innovation spirit," says chief operating officer Matt Kriteman.
A growing number of AI tools and technologies are being
tested around the world in the field of recruitment.
Among the most high-profile is HireVue, a US-based video
platform that enables candidates to be interviewed at any time of day and uses
algorithms to evaluate their answers and facial expressions.
Seedlink, which has offices in Amsterdam and Shanghai,
asks candidates to answer questions on their smartphones, and analyses their
language to see if they're the right cultural fit for a role.
And UK start-up JamieAi focuses on matching candidates
with the right credentials for relevant job openings, seeking to eliminate bias
by excluding demographic factors, such as name, age or ethnicity.
Dr Malin Lindelöw has several concerns about the use of
robots in recruitment
Swedish recruiter TNG says interviewees have enjoyed
their encounters with Tengai. But some professionals have concerns.
Dr Malin Lindelöw, a Swedish psychologist who specialises
in recruitment, says: "Recruiting is very much a leap of faith. It's a
huge investment. It's a huge commitment. And you need to believe in the
decision that you make.
"I find it very difficult to believe that recruiting
managers will rely on a robot."
She also points out that interviews - especially those in
sectors where there is a skills shortage - can be as much about job seekers
deciding whether or not they want to work for a company as the reverse.
"The candidate will come to the interview thinking:
'Is this a place where I want to work? 'Is this somebody I want to work with?'
They get their own gut feeling and it will affect their decision a great
deal," she says.
"I am very concerned about what robots may do to
that part of the process."
Comments
Post a Comment